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All artwork and text is copyrighted by Frederick Gardner, unless otherwise attributed to the respective copyright owner, it is illegal to publish or print any such artwork or text without written permission by the artist or copyright owners.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

I was working on visual development for a "Gator Farm" in the film, Jack & Ben, and kinda fell in love with drawing alligators. My friends, Ovi Nedelcu and Chris Sasaki did some amazing alligators too. I was really great to see everyone's different take.

A few years ago, I was working on designs for a graveyard (for the film, Jack & Ben) and thought it would be visuallyexciting for most of the gravestones to have wings of some kind - as the film was about two bird brothers. I was inspired my grave stones from cemeteries in the South. I really liked the idea of these angels as "guardians" of the cemetery.

Friday, June 12, 2009

One of the many cool things about living in Oregon, is all the amazing history just laying in fields or on the side of the road. While driving on the highway, I saw this amazing old truck sitting in a field, covered in blackberry vines. After doing a bit of research, I found out this old truck was used in the logging industry as "tugger". My understanding is, it was used to pull felled trees from the woods into open fields where they could be loaded onto logging trucks.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

This is some "Scary Wallpaper" I designed for a CG demo reel. I wanted the wallpaper in this old house to be subtly uncomfortable. The painting of this looks amazing, you have to look really hard to see the skulls! This pattern might make cool pajamas.

These are a few takes on one of the villager's homes I did for a version of The Very Old Man with Enormous WIngs. The dwellings in this village are supposed to look rustic and timeless. I figure the poor people who live here are satisfied with the little they have and don't really aspire to much. I tried to show some of that in these sketches. These designs are intentionally loose, and serve as conceptual drawings to help the director visualize the short story he was working from.

This is a design for a fishing village for an animated short (A Very Old Man with Enormous WIngs) I was working on in Portland. The time period for the short is supposed to be pretty vague. I was inspired by Cuban fishing villages of the 30s and 40s and border areas of Tijuana, Mexico.

About the artist, El Frederico

2-time Emmy Award winning artist & background designer. CalArts 1989-90. I started my career in Animation in 1990 as an animator/character layout artist on the 2nd season of the Simpsons. I ended up becoming a designer and have been designing backgrounds for a living. I've been lucky enough to work at all the big studios in Hollywood: Klasky-Csupo, Warner Bros, Disney, Fox, MGM, Hanna-Barbera, DreamWorks TV, Sony, Jim Henson Studios, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Laika. I currently work as a VisDev Artist and Senior Designer on several new projects at Reel FX studios in Dallas, TX and own/operate a freelance design studio, "Frederick Gardner Design". Interested in contacting me for freelance? Email me at ElFrederico3@gmail.com.
Frederick Gardner's blog is updated from Los Angeles, CA and Dallas, TX.